Ron Base - Sanibel Sunset Detective 01 - The Sanibel Sunset Detective by Ron Base Read Free Book Online

thought I knew where this person was.”
    “Did someone have a name?”
    “No.”
    Mel said, “So Reno thought you knew someone. Only you didn’t know anyone.”
    “Could be he thought I know Dara Rait.”
    “Except you don’t,” said Cee Jay Boone.
    “No, I don’t.”
    “But Tree, here you are, looking for Dara Rait.”
    “I’m looking for a boy’s mother.”
    “Oh, yeah,” Cee Jay said. “The kid who paid you seven dollars.”
    “Here’s the thing,” Mel Scott said. “Doesn’t make any difference who you know or don’t know. You got Reno O’Hara on your tail, you are one sorry dude.”
    Cee Jay nodded agreement. “If you’re on Reno’s radar screen, brother, you better hope we find him sooner than later.”
    “What’s he done?” Tree asked.
    Cee Jay and Mel traded glances. Cee Jay said, “That’s police business. It’s not private detective business.”

7
    Y ou haven’t seen my glasses have you?” “Why don’t you put them in the same place every time and then you won’t lose them.” Freddie brushed pesto on fresh grouper.
    “I do put them in the same place, except I forget where that place is.”
    “The last time I saw them, they were on the kitchen counter.”
    “I would not have left them on the counter, I can tell you that much.”
    Tree disappeared into the house. She put the filets on the barbecue, and then stepped back into the house. She encountered Tree wearing his glasses.
    “Where were they?”
    “On the kitchen counter.”
    Tree watched the fish on the barbecue while Freddie fixed a salad with baby arugula and small tomatoes.
    Once the fish was done, she added oil and vinegar to the salad and they sat on the terrace watching the sun set while Freddie recounted the events of her day: the continuing attempts to update the computer system, a general manager who said he could deliver but didn’t, her efforts to persuade Ray to adapt a realistic planning strategy for the coming year. Sometimes, she said, she felt as though she was speaking to him in a foreign language. Then it was Tree’s turn. He told Freddie about Reno O’Hara, Marcello on the beach, the bike shop, and the boy’s subsequent disappearance. He told her about the Bon Air Motor Park and the police. He did not say the police thought Reno O’Hara highly dangerous and capable of killing Tree. That was not a conversation over chardonnay and sunsets on the terrace.
    Even so, by the time Tree finished, Freddie was sitting up, calm as always, but more intense than usual. She put her plate to one side without finishing the grouper.
    “Not to sound like the concerned wife or anything.”
    “Of course not.”
    “But are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?”
    “I don’t have a clue. A guy named Reno O’Hara shows up at the office looking for a woman. I have no idea who she is. But he doesn’t believe me.”
    “Okay, I’m following you so far,” Freddie said.
    “Then I end up at a trailer park looking for a woman named Dara Rait. That’s when the police showed up.”
    “What were the police doing there?”
    “Looking for Reno O’Hara.”
    “Why?”
    “They won’t say. But they do say that Dara Rait is mixed up with him.”
    “So you’re thinking Dara is the woman Reno came to your office looking for.”
    “He must have followed Marcello.”
    “Who is looking for his mother. Dara?”
    “I don’t know. The police don’t seem to think Dara has a son. Marcello disappeared before I had a chance to ask him.”
    “What did they think of you showing up in the midst of all this?”
    “The two detectives gave me the distinct impression they think I’m an idiot.”
    “Not an idiot,” Freddie said. “Maybe just a nice guy in over his head.”
    ____
    Tree was back in a newspaper city room, desperate to finish a story. What story? He couldn’t remember. The big wall clock ticked loudly. Smoke curled in the air. White men in white shirts jabbed at typewriter keys so fast their